London house of Charles Dickens. "The Thirteenth Tale" and "Dickens' Dream" Robert Bass Dickens' Dream

House in London where Charles Dickens lived

The Charles Dickens Museum is located in Holborn, London. It is located in the only house that has survived to this day, where the writer Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine once lived. They moved here in April 1837, a year after their marriage, and lived here until December 1839. The family had three children, and a little later two more daughters were born. In total, the Dickens had ten children. As the family grew, the Dickens moved to larger apartments.

It was here at the very beginning of the 19th century that Dickens created Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

The museum contains exhibits telling both about Dickens's era as a whole, and about his writing career, about the writer's works and heroes, about his personal and family life. In 1923, Dickens's house on Doughty Street was under threat of demolition, but was bought by the Dickens Society, which had already existed for over twenty years. The building was renovated and the Charles Dickens House Museum opened here in 1925.

**************************************** **************************************** *******************

Catherine Dickens - writer's wife

They married in the spring of 1836. The honeymoon of 20-year-old Catherine and 24-year-old Charles lasted only a week: obligations to publishers awaited him in London.

During the first years of their marriage, Mary, Catherine's younger sister, lived with the Dickens couple. Dickens adored her, lively, cheerful, spontaneous. She reminded Charles of his sister Fanny, with whom his most cherished childhood memories were associated. Her innocence made the writer experience a sense of guilt inherent in Victorian men... But he did his best to curb his natural passion. It is unlikely that Catherine liked such coexistence, but she was not in the habit of making a scene for her husband. One day the three of them returned from the theater and Mary suddenly lost consciousness. From that moment on, Charles did not let the girl out of his arms, and her last words were intended only for him. She died of a heart attack. He ordered the words “Young” to be engraved on the gravestone. Beautiful. Good." And he asked his loved ones to bury him in Mary’s grave.

**************************************** ***************************************

The Dickens Society, which had existed for more than 20 years by that time, managed to buy this building, where the Charles Dickens Museum was organized. For a long time, only specialists and students of literary faculties knew about him. However, interest in the writer’s work has recently begun to grow strongly, and on the eve of his 200th anniversary, very large sums were invested in the renovation and restoration of the museum. The updated and restored museum opened just a month after work began - December 10, 2012.

The restorers tried to recreate the authentic atmosphere of Dickens's house. Here, all the furnishings and many things are genuine and once belonged to the writer. According to museum staff, specialists did everything to make the visitor feel that the writer had only left for a short time and would now return.

They tried to recreate the Charles Dickens Museum as a typical English home of a middle-income family of the 19th century, although Dickens himself was always afraid of poverty. There is a restored kitchen with all the attributes, a bedroom with a luxurious four-poster bed, a cozy living room, and a dining room with plates on the table.

Portrait of young Charles

Portrait of Charles Dickens by Samuel Drummond These Victorian plates feature portraits of Dickens and his friends. On the second floor there is his studio where he created, his wardrobe, his desk and chair, a shaving kit, some manuscripts and first editions of his books are carefully preserved. There are also paintings, portraits of the writer, personal belongings, and letters.

"The Shadow" by Dickens on the wall of the hall, as it were, invites you to examine the office, dining room, bedrooms, living room, kitchen.

0" height="800" src="https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/9823/202559433.20/0_10d67f_5dd06563_-1-XL.jpg" style="border: 0px none; margin: 5px;" width="600">

Writer's office

Catherine Dickens's room

Catherine Dickens's room interior

Catherine and Charles

Bust of Catherine

Portrait of Catherine with sewing

Under the portrait in the window lies the same sewing done by her hands... But the frame was not sharp... She was three years younger than him, pretty, with blue eyes and heavy eyelids, fresh, plump, kind and devoted. He loved and appreciated her family. Although Catherine did not arouse in him the same passion as Maria Beadnell, she seemed to be ideal for him. Dickens intended to make a big statement. He knew that he had to work long and hard, and he liked to do everything quickly. He wanted to have a wife and children. He had a passionate nature and, having chosen a life partner, sincerely became attached to her. They became one. She was “his better half,” “wifey,” “Mrs. D.” - in the first years of their marriage, he called Katherine just that and spoke about her with unbridled delight. He was definitely proud of her, and also that he had managed to get such a worthy companion as his wife.

Salon-studio where Dickens read his works

The needs of Dickens' family members exceeded his income. His disorderly, purely bohemian nature did not allow him to bring any kind of order into his affairs. Not only did he overwork his rich and fertile brain by over-working his creative mind, but being an extraordinarily brilliant reader, he endeavored to earn handsome fees by lecturing and reading excerpts from his novels. The impression from this purely acting reading was always colossal. Apparently, Dickens was one of the greatest reading virtuosos. But on his trips he fell into the hands of some dubious entrepreneurs and, while earning money, at the same time brought himself to exhaustion.

Second floor - studio and personal office

On the second floor there is his studio where he created, his wardrobe, his desk and chair, a shaving kit, some manuscripts and first editions of his books are carefully preserved. There are also paintings, portraits of the writer, personal belongings, and letters.

Victorian painting

Dickens chair

Famous portrait in the red chair

Dickens' personal desk and manuscript pages...

Dickens and his immortal heroes

The museum houses a portrait of the writer known as Dickens' Dream, painted by R.W. R.W. Buss, illustrator of Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. This unfinished portrait shows the writer in his study, surrounded by the many characters he created.

Mary's young sister-in-law's bedroom

It was in this apartment that Dickens suffered his first serious grief. There, his wife’s younger sister, seventeen-year-old Mary Gogard, died almost suddenly. It is difficult to imagine that the novelist, who just a year and a half before had married for love, felt passion for the young girl, almost a child, who lived in his house, but there is no doubt that he was united with her by more than brotherly affection. Her death struck him so much that he abandoned all his literary work and left London for several years. He kept the memory of Mary throughout his life. Her image stood before him when he created Nellie in the "Antiquities Shop"; in Italy he saw her in his dreams, in America he thought about her with the noise of Niagara. She seemed to him the ideal of feminine charm, innocent purity, a delicate, half-blooming flower, cut down too early by the cold hand of death.

Bust and original documents

Charles's formal suit

Original lamp in Mary's room

four poster bed...

Translator from English...)))

The guide to the museum was issued for a time and only in English, so we are very grateful to Olga for her invaluable help...)))

Office for papers with documents...

Medical devices...

Dickens's favorite chair...

Exhibition room of quotes and sayings...

The Museum organized the exhibition “Dickens and London”, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great English writer. Interesting installations are located under the roof and in the side rooms of the building.

Bust of Dickens' father

London in Dickens's time

Portraits of Dickens' children and their clothes

Catherine was a very persistent woman, she never complained to her husband, did not shift family concerns onto him, but her postpartum depression and headaches increasingly irritated Charles, who did not want to acknowledge the validity of his wife’s suffering. The domestic idyll born of his imagination did not correspond to reality. The desire to become a respectable family man went against his nature. I had to suppress a lot in myself, which only aggravated the feeling of dissatisfaction.

With children, Charles also showed the duality characteristic of his nature. He was gentle and attentive, entertained and encouraged, delved into all the problems, and then suddenly grew cold. Especially when they reached the age when his own serene childhood ended. He felt a constant need to take care, first of all, that his children would never experience the humiliations that befell him. But at the same time, this concern burdened him too much and prevented him from continuing to be a passionate and tender father.
After 7 years of marriage, Dickens increasingly began to flirt with women. Catherine's first open rebellion on this matter struck him to the core. Fat, with faded eyes, barely recovering from yet another birth, she sobbed muffledly and demanded that he immediately stop his visits to the “other woman.” The scandal erupted over Dickens's friendship in Genoa with the Englishwoman Augusta de la Roi.
A complete break with Catherine occurred after Charles began to show signs of attention to her younger sister Georgia.
The writer published a letter in his weekly “Home Reading”, which was called “angry”. Until now, the public had not suspected anything about the events in the writer’s personal life, but now he told everything himself. The main theses of this message are as follows: Katherine herself is to blame for their breakup with his wife; it was she who turned out to be unadapted to family life with him, to the role of wife and mother. Georgina was the one who kept him from breaking up. She raised the children, since Katherine, according to her husband, was a useless mother (“Daughters turned into stones in her presence”). Dickens did not lie - his feelings towards women were always particularly intense, either negative or positive.
All their actions that they performed from the moment he rewarded them with a negative “image” only confirmed in his mind that he was right. So it was with my mother, and now with Katherine. Much of the letter was dedicated to Georgina and her innocence. He also admitted to the existence of a woman for whom he “feels strongly.” With his public confession, which became extreme in its form and content after a long habit of keeping his spiritual secrets, it was as if he had won another “battle with life.” I won the right to break with the past. Almost all of the friends turned away from the writer, siding with Katherine. He did not forgive them for this until the end of his life. Then he composed another letter to refute the storm of gossip and rumors that had arisen. But most newspapers and magazines refused to publish it.

But that's not the main thing. I mean, the book is excellent, although personally it doesn’t remind me at all of English Gothic (they say that it is a famous representative of such a genre as neo-Gothic), but rather something similar to Andahazi and McCormick. Well, plus the English flavor, of course, yes, but just a flavor. That's not the point.

But the fact is that in this book I came across a mention of a painting by the artist Robert William Bass called “Dickens’ Dream.” And I liked her description so much that I immediately went to Google (oh, blessed Internet) to look at it.
And the picture turned out to be brilliant. The idea itself, the execution, and even the story are as mysteriously gloomy as the object of the image.

When I reached Miss Winter, I found her deep in thought. Then I sat down on a chair and began to watch the reflection of the stars in the mirrors. Half an hour passed like this; Miss Winter pondered, and I waited silently.

Finally she spoke:

Have you ever seen a painting of Dickens in his study? The artist's name seems to be Basho*. I must have a reproduction somewhere, then I’ll find it for you. Dickens is dozing in a chair pushed away from the table; his eyes are closed, his bearded head is bowed to his chest. His feet are wearing slippers. And around him, like cigar smoke, the characters of his books hover: some circle over the pages of a manuscript open on the table, others hover behind his back, and others descend down, as if they were planning to walk on the floor, like living people. Why not? They are written in the same clear lines as the author himself, so why shouldn't they be just as real? In any case, they are more real than the books on the shelves, which the artist indicated only with careless, ghostly strokes.

This is the picture.

I read on the Internet that the artist was a big fan of Dickens’s work and was even once invited by the publisher to illustrate one of his works. However, the publishers did not like the presented illustrations and they turned to someone else. This unpleasant event, however, did not affect Bass’s enthusiastic attitude towards Dickens’s books.
The picture that attracted me so much (and not only me, in general, although this, of course, is no longer so important;)), Bass began writing after Dickens’s death. He himself also died soon and, as far as I understand, the picture remained not entirely finished. However, I didn’t read the explanations for this picture very carefully on one of the pages on the Internet dedicated to Dickens, so I could have gotten something wrong. I was more attracted to the picture itself - its plot and details. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it on a larger scale, it’s a shame, I would like to see the details in more detail.

By the way, I don’t know, maybe something else will be connected further with this picture in the book I’m reading. So far, I’ve read about a quarter of the total volume :) It’s easy and fascinating to read, the plot is tricky and mystical, but I don’t even like it more, but such small details, such as the description of the note-taking technique used by the main character-biographer (I’m even thinking of adopting it); reflections on the relevance of truth and fiction in certain situations and in general in principle; the idea of ​​books and the stories told in them (or by them?) as a kind of living beings with their own characters.

"That's all"? These words seemed to me a too restrained conclusion to the story of how Miss Winter lost her mother. Of course, she had a low opinion of Isabella's maternal qualities, and the very word "mother" was alien to her vocabulary. It is not surprising: from what was said, it was clear that Isabella did not have any parental feelings for her daughters. However, who am I to judge other people's relationships with their mothers?

Closing the notebook, I rose from my chair.

“I’ll be back in three days, that is, on Thursday,” I reminded her.

And she left, leaving Miss Winter alone with her black wolf.

I'm done with my nightly notes. All my twelve pencils are dull; it was time to fix them. One by one, I inserted the pencils into the sharpening machine. If you turn the handle slowly and smoothly, you can get wriggling shavings as long as the edge of the table to the very bottom of the waste paper basket, but today I was too tired, and the shavings kept breaking off in midair.

I thought about the story and its characters. I liked the Missus and John the Kopun. Charlie and Isabella were annoying. The doctor and his wife were certainly motivated by noble motives, but I suspected that their interference in the fate of the twins would not lead to anything good.

As for the twins, I was at a loss. I could only judge them from the words of third parties. John-kopun believed that they did not know how to speak normally; The missus was sure that they did not perceive other people as full-fledged living beings; the villagers even thought they were crazy. Despite all this, oddly enough, I did not know the narrator’s own opinion about them. Miss Winter was like a source of light, illuminating everything around her except herself. She was the black hole at the very heart of the story. She spoke about her characters in the third person and only in the last episode introduced the pronoun “we”, while the pronoun “I” has not yet been used even once.

If I asked her about this, it was not difficult to predict the answer: “Miss Li, you and I have an agreement.” I had asked her questions before, clarifying some details of the story, and although at times she condescended to comment, more often she sounded a reminder of our first meeting: “No deception. No getting ahead of ourselves. No questions asked."

Therefore, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to speculate for a long time; However, on the same evening events occurred that somewhat clarified the situation.

Having tidied up my desk, I was packing my suitcase when there was a knock on the door. I opened it and saw Judith in front of me.

“Miss Winter asked if you would spare her a few minutes right now?” “I had no doubt that this was a polite translation of a much shorter command: “Bring Miss Lee here” or something like that.

I folded the last blouse, put it in my suitcase and headed to the library.

Miss Winter sat in her usual place, illuminated by the flames of the fireplace, while the rest of the library was plunged into darkness.

- To turn on the light? – I asked from the doorway.

“No,” came the voice from the far end of the room, and I moved there along the dark passage between the cabinets.

The shutters were open, and the mirrors reflected the star-studded night sky.

When I reached Miss Winter, I found her deep in thought. Then I sat down on a chair and began to watch the reflection of the stars in the mirrors. Half an hour passed like this; Miss Winter pondered, and I waited silently.

Finally she spoke:

– Have you ever seen a picture of Dickens in his study? The artist's name seems to be Basho*. I must have a reproduction somewhere, then I’ll find it for you. Dickens is dozing in a chair pushed away from the table; his eyes are closed, his bearded head is bowed to his chest. His feet are wearing slippers. And around him, like cigar smoke, the characters of his books hover: some circle over the pages of the manuscript open on the table, others hover behind his back, and others descend down, as if they were planning to walk on the floor, like living people. Why not? They are written in the same clear lines as the author himself, so why shouldn't they be just as real? In any case, they are more real than the books on the shelves, which the artist indicated only with careless, ghostly strokes.

>> * This refers to the painting “Dickens’ Dream” by the English artist Robert W. Bass, painted shortly after the writer’s death in 1870.

You may ask why I remembered this now? This picture can serve as an illustration of how I spent most of my life. I locked myself away from the outside world in my office, where the only company I had was the heroes created by my imagination. For almost sixty years, I eavesdropped on the conversations of these non-existent people with impunity. I shamelessly looked into their souls, into their bedrooms and water closets. I watched every movement of their feathers as they wrote love letters and wills. I watched lovers in the moments when they made love, murderers at the moment of committing a murder, children during their secret games. The doors of prisons and brothels swung open before me; sailing ships and camel caravans carried me across seas and deserts; Centuries and continents changed at my whim. I saw the spiritual insignificance of the great of this world and the nobility of the orphaned and wretched. I bent so low over the beds of the sleeping people that they could feel my breath on their faces. I saw their dreams.

My office was filled with characters waiting for me to write about them. All these imaginary people were trying to come into life, they persistently tugged at my sleeve and shouted: “I’m next! Now it's my turn!" I had to make a choice. And when it was done, the rest fell silent for ten months or a year, until I finished the next story, and then the same mess arose again.

And every time over the years, when I looked up from the page, finishing the story, or pondering the death scene, or simply searching for the right word, I saw the same face behind the crowd. A well-known face. White skin, reddish hair, bright green eyes staring at me. I knew perfectly well who it was, but nevertheless I always flinched in surprise when I saw her. She managed to take me by surprise. Sometimes she opened her mouth and tried to tell me something, but she was too far away, and in all these years I never heard her voice. I myself was in a hurry to be distracted by something else, looking as if I hadn’t noticed her at all. Although I don't think I was able to fool her with that trick.

People are surprised by my performance. It's all about this girl. I was forced to start a new book within five minutes of finishing the previous one only because I was afraid to take my eyes off the desk, because then I would probably meet her eyes.

Years passed; the number of my books on store shelves grew, and the number of characters inhabiting my office decreased accordingly. With each new book, the chorus of voices in my head became quieter. The imaginary people who sought my attention disappeared one by one, and behind this thinning group, moving closer with each book, she was invariably there. Green-eyed girl. She waited.

And then the day came when I finished the manuscript of my last book. I wrote the final phrase and put an end to it. I knew what would happen next. The pen slipped from my hand and my eyes closed.

“Well, that’s all,” I heard her (or my own?) voice. “Now we are left alone.”

I tried to argue with her.

“This story won’t work for me,” I said. “It happened so long ago, I was still a child then.” I forgot everything".

But my excuses didn't work.

“But I didn’t forget anything,” she said. - Remember how...

There is no use resisting the inevitable. I remembered everything.

“My uncle lay with his eyes half-closed, his nightcap slid down onto his very nose. His thoughts were already beginning to get confused, and instead of the situation surrounding him, he saw the crater of Vesuvius, the French Opera, the Colosseum, Dolly's London Tavern, all that jumble of sights from different countries that a traveler's head is filled with. In short, he was going to bed."

So writes the wonderful writer Washington Irving in his “Tales of a Traveler.” But recently I happened to lie not with half-closed, but with wide open eyes; and my nightcap did not slide down my nose, because for hygienic reasons I never wear a nightcap, but my hair was tangled and scattered all over the pillow; and, moreover, I did not at all go to sleep, but stubbornly, obstinately and furiously stayed awake. Perhaps unintentionally and without setting any scientific goals, I nevertheless confirmed by example the theory of dual consciousness; perhaps one part of my brain, awake, was watching the other, falling asleep. Be that as it may, something in me longed more than anything else to sleep, and something else did not want to fall asleep, showing a stubbornness truly worthy of George the Third.

Thinking of George the Third - I dedicate this essay to my thoughts during insomnia, since most people have insomnia, and therefore the subject should interest them - I remembered Benjamin Franklin, and after that his essay on the art of causing pleasant dreams, which, it would seem, should include the art of falling asleep. And since I read this essay many times in early childhood and remember everything I read then as firmly as I forget everything I read now, I mentally quoted: “Get out of bed, fluff and turn over the pillow, well, at least twenty once, shake the sheets and blanket; then open the bed and let it cool, while in the meantime, without getting dressed, walk around the room. When you feel that the cold air is unpleasant for you, go back to bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be strong and sweet.” No matter how it is! I did everything exactly as prescribed and only achieved that my eyes, if possible, opened even wider.

And Niagara appeared. Perhaps I remembered it by association - quotes from Irving and Franklin directed my thoughts in an American direction; yes, I stood on the edge of the waterfall, it roared and fell at my feet, and even the rainbow that played on the spray when I last saw it in reality again delighted my gaze. However, I saw my night light just as clearly, and since the dream seemed to be thousands of miles further from me than Niagara, I decided to think a little about the dream. As soon as I decided this, I found myself, God knows how, in the Drury Lane Theater, saw a wonderful actor and close friend of mine (whom I was thinking about that day) in the role of Macbeth and heard his voice praising the “healing balm of a sick soul.” as I have heard many times in years past.

So, sleep. I will force myself to think about the dream. I firmly decided (I continued mentally) to think about sleep. I need to hold on to the word “dream” as tightly as possible, otherwise it will take me somewhere again. Well, of course, I already feel like for some reason I’m rushing into the Clare Market slums. Dream. It would be interesting, in order to verify the opinion that sleep equalizes everyone, to find out whether the same dreams occur to people of all classes and ranks, rich and poor, educated and ignorant. Let's say, tonight Her Majesty Queen Victoria is sleeping in her palace, but here, in one of Her Majesty's prisons, Charlie-Morgun, an inveterate thief and tramp, is sleeping. Her Majesty fell hundreds of times in her sleep from the same tower from which I consider myself entitled to fall from time to time. Charlie-Morgun too. Her Majesty opened the session of Parliament and received foreign ambassadors, dressed in more than meager clothes, the insufficiency and inappropriateness of which plunged her into great embarrassment. I, for my part, experienced indescribable agony in presiding over a banquet in a London tavern in my underwear, and my good friend Mr. Bate, with all his courtesy, could not convince me that this attire was the most suitable for the occasion. Charlie-Morgun appeared before the court again and again and not in this form. Her Majesty is well acquainted with a certain vault, or canopy, with an incomprehensible pattern, vaguely reminiscent of eyes, which sometimes disturbs her sleep. He is familiar to me too. I know Charlie too. All three of us had to glide with silent steps through the air, just above the ground; and also to have exciting conversations with various people, knowing that all these people are ourselves; and rack our brains, wondering what they will tell us; and be unspeakably amazed at the secrets that they revealed to us. All three of us probably committed murders and hid the corpses. There is no doubt that at times we all desperately wanted to scream, but our voices failed us; that we went to the theater and could not get into it; that we dream much more often of our youth than of our later years; what are we... no, I forgot! The thread broke. And so I rise. I’m lying in bed, a night light is burning next to me, and I, for no reason and without any visible connection with my previous thoughts, am climbing the Great St. Bernard! I lived in Switzerland, wandered a lot in the mountains, but why I was drawn there now, and why specifically to Saint Bernard, and not to some other mountain, I have no idea. Lying without sleep - all my senses are heightened to the point that I distinguish distant sounds, inaudible at other times - I make this journey, as I once did it in reality, on the same summer day, in the same cheerful company (two Since then, alas, they have died! ), and the same path leads up the mountain, the same black wooden hands show the way, the same shelters for travelers come across here and there; the same snow is falling on the pass, and the same frosty fog there, and the same frozen monastery with the smell of a menagerie, and the same breed of dogs, now dying out, and the same breed of hospitable young monks (sad to know that they are all swindlers!) , and the same hall for travelers, with a piano and evening conversations by the fire, and the same dinner, and the same lonely night in the cell, and the same bright, fresh morning, when, inhaling the rarefied air, it’s like plunging into an ice bath! Well, have you seen a new miracle? And why did it pop into my head in Switzerland, on a mountain top?

This is a chalk drawing that I saw one day in the semi-darkness on a door in a narrow alley near the village church - the first church to which I was taken. I don’t remember how old I was then, but this drawing scared me so much, probably because there was a cemetery nearby, the little man in the drawing smokes a pipe and is wearing a wide-brimmed hat, from under which his ears stick out horizontally, and in general there is nothing scary about him, except for a mouth to his ears, bulging eyes, and hands in the form of bunches of carrots, five pieces in each - which still makes me feel creepy when I remember (and I remembered this more than once during insomnia), how I ran home and kept looking around, and felt with horror that he was chasing me - whether he came off the door, or along with the door, I don’t know and probably never knew. No, again my thoughts went somewhere wrong. You can't let them run away like that.

Hot air balloon flights last season. They are probably good for passing the hours of insomnia. I just have to hold them tight, or I can already feel them slipping away, and in their place are the Mannings, husband and wife, hanging over the gates of Horsemonger Lane Prison. This depressing picture reminded me of the trick my imagination once played on me: having witnessed the execution of the Mannings and leaving the place of execution while both bodies were still dangling over the gate (the man - a saggy dress, as if there was no longer a person under him; the woman - a beautiful figure, so carefully pulled into a corset and dressed so skillfully that even now, slowly swaying from side to side, she looked neat and elegant), then for several weeks I could not imagine the outside appearance of the prison (and the shock I experienced again and again brought my thoughts back to her), not even imagining the two corpses still hanging in the morning air. Only after I had passed by this gloomy place late in the evening, when the street was quiet and deserted, and was convinced with my own eyes that there were no corpses there, my imagination agreed, so to speak, to take them out of the noose and bury them in the prison yard, where They have been at rest ever since.